Yandex, Russia’s leading search engine, has beefed up its music streaming options with the launch of the Yandex.Music service.
In addition to single tracks previously available for streaming directly on yandex.ru, where available, users who search for a particular track, album or artist will be re-directed to Yandex.Music in which they can make their own playlists or further search for music by style or genre etc.
In terms of restrictions, the service allows users to add both tracks and entire albums to playlists and stream an unlimited amount of music for free, perhaps reflecting the prevalence of the ‘grey’ market in Russia.
However, although fully licensed, Yandex’ music catalog isn’t huge, providing around 800,000 tracks from 58,000 artists. In other words, it’s no Spotify or We7. Content comes from the likes of Universal Music Group International, EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony Music, First Music Publishing, Monolit, SBA Production and many others.